5 Things to Know About Apple CarPlay

Smart cars, like those equipped with Apple's just announced CarPlay, might earn their name by ensuring your eyes stay on the road and your hands on the wheel as you do all those things that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cautions against and the law doesn’t allow.

Making calls, texting, switching songs, and getting directions is front and center with CarPlay, a feature making its debut in a few cars at the Geneva Motor Show this week. On cars so equipped, a touch screen takes up the middle console where control knobs used to be. Before Apple came up with the name CarPlay—and undoubtedly rejected iCar—it was calling the system iOS in the Car. Apple first introduced the concept last summer at WWDC 2013. “Ninety-five percent of the cars being sold today have integrated music playback and control from an iOS device but we want to take this integration to a whole other level,” Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue said when he presented it.

Those who have dropped their BlackBerry of yore for an iPhone might be surprised to find out that CarPlay is built on BlackBerry’s QNX platform, the same OS powering the BlackBerry Q10.

CarPlay will be available on select new car models in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Here’s what those who get into the driver’s seat can expect.

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